Tanya Aguiñiga REINDIGENIZING THE SELF at Volume Gallery

3 November - 31 December '17

“How do the liminal land?”

The works featured in Reindigenizing the Self are the result of Aguiñiga’s own explorations into identity, driven by Latin and Mesoamerican Surrealism. Fully tapping into her Mexican heritage in both material and ideological explorations, Aguiñiga digs deep and ponders the resulting questions with a nod to Mexican surrealism and the sometimes absurdist explanations of the Popol-Vuh (the Mayan creation myth).

“An overwhelming sense of grief and impotence overcomes my soul as I grasp to understand my cultural history. Years of power and oppression, dignity and insignificance. Left only with wit as a coping mechanism for mestizaje, assimilation and diasporic migrations.

My sense of self is riddled with dichotomous punctures. I look to the Popol-Vuh as a source of surreal explanation for my intuitive draw to materials and the absurd. Constantly pushing myself to the grotesque as a source of enlightenment for my own lack of genealogical consciousness.”

The works created are made of earth (clay and metal), plant (abaca and flax), animal (alpaca hair, horsehair and cochineal), and human (Aguiñiga’s sisters and daughter). Each material choice is firmly rooted in connecting the work to Aguiñiga’s home, history and heritage.

When lines on a map become arbitrary walls in a community does it create a hurdle to understanding your history? That politics cannot be separated from place and place from politics, Aguiñiga is asking questions that will hopefully fade away with subsequent generations - left to bare the brunt of that history.